Rupert Everett excels as Oscar Wilde in his passion project The Happy Prince |
The final end result is a well-made, interesting, decent
film that doesn’t reinvent the wheel or radically change our perceptions or
knowledge of Wilde – but does plenty of credit to Everett. He directs with an
assurance and a surprising amount of visual flair. The film is attractive and
uses urgent, hand-held camerawork with a great deal of skill, giving even the most
basic scenes a real spark of life. There are some intelligent and intriguing visual
cuts and transitions and he gets good work from the cast (Firth, an old friend, loyally did the film for nothing to help it get made). There is enough here
to make you keen to see Everett have a go at another film (although I suspect,
from reading the book, that’s highly unlikely to happen).
Everett also plays the lead role, and that’s the film’s main
interest. He honed his performance as Wilde after the best part of a year on
stage (to huge acclaim) in David Hare’s The Judas Kiss. Not to mention Everett
has a natural affinity for Wildean dialogue, having proven on several occasions
that maybe no actor alive better captures Wilde’s wit and pathos. His Wilde is a
shattered husk, slowly realising over the course of the film that his life is
effectively over. This happens not so much as a raging against the light, but
the slow deflation of a man who died at a very early age (barely mid 40s), collapsing
into depression, alcoholism and repeating the same mistakes over and over
again.
The most prominent of those mistakes being taking up again
with his lover (and root cause of his disgrace the first time) Bosie, played
here with preening, incandescent selfishness by Colin Morgan. During a long sojourn
in Naples, these two flirt, fight and fuck until the money runs out – like an
appalling unfunny screwball comedy couple who keep being dragged back together because
fighting each other is better than talking to anyone else. Bosie then turns up
in floods of tears at Wilde’s grave – having cut all ties with him or face
disinheritance, fobbing him off with a few hundred quid of “thank but piss off”
money.
Wilde’s loyal friends stick by him – but in that typical blinkered
way we sometimes behave when we are in love, Wilde oscillates between being
sickeningly dependent and dismissive of them. Everett isn’t afraid to make Wilde
often preening, sponging, selfish and deluded or to stress how easily his wit
and intelligence could be turned cruel. Edwin Thomas is heart-breakingly
earnest as Wilde’s devoted friend Robbie Ross while Firth gives sterling
support as the equally loyal Reggie Turner.
The film follows Wilde into some pretty dark places and plays
some quite daring cards when exploring Wilde’s psyche. Everett plainly shows
Wilde deeply regretted the end of his relationship with his children, and the
damage he caused them. But he isn’t afraid to show him taking on potential substitutes
for them in a teenage boy and his prepubescent brother – while still paying for
sex with the older brother (eagerly pimped by his street-smart younger
brother). Despite this there’s something very sad about Wilde settling down to tell
these kids the same stories he told his own. Or his gentle longing for the
family he left behind that we hear in his voice when he sees them.
Where the film is strongest is in showing the prejudice and
rage Wilde met and the suffering he endured. Wilde is spat at, chased through
the street by drunken poshboys on tour (finally physically confronting them in
a church with a foul-mouthed fury), threatened and generally treated like dirt
by nearly everyone of any social standing. Scenes of him at his pomp show the
same traits now treated as disgusting signs of his sexual preference, were
celebrated as evidence of his charm. The Happy Prince has an angry and
rage to it that I almost wish Everett had committed to more.
Saying that, it’s shot and edited with such pace and urgency
that the film still works. If at the end it never quite coalesces into a clear
message, it’s still a fine tribute to Everett’s efforts to bring it to the screen.
And his own performance is a marvel – beautifully judged, empathetic but not hagiographic,
critical but sympathetic, funny and also moving, angry but gentle. Its best legacy
is the opportunity Everett the actor is given by Everett the director (as he
confesses in the book one of his principle reasons for writing the script in
the first place) and if the film is a little too much of a one-man showcase, it
still has plenty of interest to it.
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